Genesis 18:9-15, 21:1-7; Romans 5:1-8
A little over two years ago, my dear friend, Ellen, pulled me aside at church. She was laughing, and said, “I had the funniest dream about you the other night!”
Now, Ellen (in her 70s) was the kind of person and friend, who paid attention to dreams, to her interior life; who really listened when someone was talking, so I was all ready for some wisdom, or a juicy sign, or revelation from her dream – except that she was laughing big.
“I dreamed that you had a baby! Hahahahaha! You came into church with this big, blue-eyed baby – eyes deepest blue! And no one even knew you were pregnant. Isn’t that hysterical? Can you imagine?” She went on “I mean, unless there’s something you’re not telling us?! Hahaha.”
“What a funny dream!” It was absurd! And also, there was something I wasn’t telling them…
Laughter is a pretty normal human response to something that seems silly, absurd! Circus clowns count on it when a dozen of them crawl out of a tiny car. Dr. Seuss knows we can hardly read his made-up names and creatures with a straight face: like Conrad Cornelius O’Donald O’Dell narrates a story about a Yuza-ma Tuz and the Umbus Cow. Silly. Absurd. Laughable.
Today’s scripture lesson is arather absurd scene from the lives of Abraham and Sarah, two of our ancestors in faith. This is an origin story from the book of Genesis that includes the birth announcement of Isaac.
There are three things we should listen for today: the way hospitality is a theme in the life of Abraham; that laughter might reveal more than humor (hope), and the way we have recognized Abraham and Sarah as pillars of faith.
Abraham is settled with Sarah in the land of Canaan. They have “put down stakes” – that is, his tent is anchored in the ground so they can stay for a while. In the ancient world, trees are associated with God-sightings. Two other times God has appeared to Abraham at the foot of tall oaks.[1] In chapter 18, the Lord appeared to Abraham in the heat of the day. Abraham looks up to see three men, the verse says, standing nearby. Was it one or three? Perhaps the sun was in his eyes… or he wanted Sarah to think it was three so she would prepare extra food when he called out, no doubt so that she could hear, “My lord, do not pass by, stop and stay. Maybe a little water could be brought for you to wash your feet… Maybe a little bread, to refresh yourselves under the tree…”
Can you imagine Sarah’s eye roll inside the tent? Pulled away from whatever she was doing by the sudden hustle her man has found in the heat of the day? Who are these guests? Who was this that he was rushing around to please? Who is Abraham calling Lord?
Abraham is “exceedingly deferential.”[2] It’s a side of him that Sarah only sees when… when Yahweh is in their midst. Could it be? Noooooo. Nevertheless, Sarah busies herself making bread cakes as Abraham hurries off to select a calf for the spit. After all that, Abraham sets the meal before his guest and stands by as they eat. That’s when the visitor(s) ask about Sarah. “She’s there in the tent,” Abraham responds.
Sucking his teeth and savoring the last morsel of flavor, the visitor shares that when he returns one year from now, Sarah will have given birth to a son. And with that, the purpose of their visit has been revealed.[3] The provision of God restated. The promise renewed.
Inside the tent, Sarah talks to herself, “Ha! I should say… a son? From this body? With that old man? After all these years? Pffffft…. “ (laughter)
Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?”
“Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” the divine visitor asks defensively. “I’m telling you in due season, I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
Again, inside the tent, Sarah says to herself, “I did not laugh.” And then she hears a response that was meant only for her, “Oh, yes you did.”
That’s funny!
Let’s notice that God speaks to Sarah personally and plainly, even if indirectly. Men and women are part of God’s call and plan to build a nation.
Three things we can take away from this origin story:
- Hospitality is an invitation to usher in the presence of God.
- Laughter is not only a signal of disbelief, but that a glimmer of hope persists.
- Abraham and Sarah are not models of faith, but disbelief.
Hospitality is a means to experience the presence of God. Open-handedness in the treatment of strangers, is central to the nature of God. It is one of those marks of the kingdom that Jesus lived and taught. But long before the time of Christ, Nomadic people, like Abraham and Sarah, offered hospitable kindness as they understood the plight of the traveler better than anyone. We know from previous stories that Abraham could be distrusting of strangers when he feared for his or his family’s safety. But this time, he seems to be waiting at the door for guests to arrive. It makes you wonder, did Abraham know that these three travelers were a manifestation of God? Perhaps, but probably not.[4]
Kendall Rothaus says, “Humans have always struggled to see the divinity in the other.”[5]
With scammers and fraudsters so prevalent in our day-to-day dealings, we start from a place of distrust with people we don’t know. Right? We have to be wise and cautious. One can be a better judge, and a far better host (!) when face to face, eye to eye. Abraham met his guests out under the oaks – where they were, a safe distance from the door of his tent. There he greeted them, washed their feet, and fed them plentifully.
Do you believe this act of hospitality on the part of Abraham and Sarah opened a pathway for blessing to occur? Should we ask what God can manifest in our lives when we practice hospitality, or does that make this all seem too transactional? When hospitality was offered, and divinity in the other seen, a way for blessing opened up in the lives of Abraham and Sarah. On the one hand, we know from experience that showing kindness or generosity makes us feel good inside. We might say, we receive a blessing from doing it. Open-handedness leads to more open heartedness. I believe that to be true. But on the other hand, not everything in this blessing depends on Abraham and Sarah’s response (trust, belief). God has made a promise that doesn’t depend on Abraham and Sarah’s readiness to receive it.[6]
God is at work, regardless. When this Stranger declared the message, it seemed so ludicrous to Sarah, she scoffed and laughed. In their old age, of course there is laughter at the thought of a baby. We would not have judged her had there been the slamming of pots and pans and cabinet doors from the tent. How dare he open that wound of all those years of infertility with the claim there will be…a son? We would not have blamed her, but that’s not in the story. This origin story doesn’t reveal frustration, or anger, it reveals laughter. Brueggemann calls it fearful, resistant laughter in place of ready-faith. But another writer offered that perhaps Sarah’s laughter suggests that beneath all the resistance and disbelief there is still a crumb of hope.[7]
We have the benefit of knowing the rest of the story. Sarah did not. She laughed in spite of herself and the absurdity of the claim. But “When the Stranger’s prophecy came to pass, and Sarah gave birth in her old age, she named her son Isaac, meaning ‘laughter.’ [Because] It was still funny nine months later,” Rothaus writes, “in a new way– tears turned to joy, weeping to laughter.”[8]
Laughter is not only a signal of absurdity, but that hope persists.
The origin stories of our faith portray the lives of men and women in whose lives God worked to bring about amazing, miraculous (even) promises. The wonder is not that these ancestors are heroes, but that God is! God, Love, Source of all life, is at work with us, in us, in spite of us. Abraham and Sarah are not heroes for their faith, they are models of disbelief. “For them, the powerful promise of God outdistances their ability to receive it.”[9] And the good news for us is that God is not limited by our expectations, or our disbelief, or our incompleteness.
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” is the question at the heart of this origin story. It’s a question that surfaces all over the Bible and certainly all over our lived experience. “But the question doesn’t only linger with babies and birth narratives. It [circles around] the impossibility of discipleship, [and] the impossibility of faith, and the impossibility of [beloved] community.” [10]
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? If hospitality can be a vehicle for God’s presence to manifest; and laughter be a vehicle for buried hopes to re-surface, then perhaps our disbelief and doubts are the perfect place for God to be God!
It sounds absurd. It’s laughable – like Ellen’s dream that I had been hiding a secret, something as obvious as a pregnancy in my 50s, something as unbelievable as a bright blue-eyed baby. When Ellen told me about that dream, we laughed! A little over two years ago, I already knew about you, about the possibility of this calling here. I knew about a congregation that worshiped in a sanctuary with bright blue windows. I think the blue-eyed baby was something new waiting to be born in the barrenness of my calling and the openness of your hospitality. Buried hopes of being a preaching pastor re-surfaced in laughter that day! The invitation to come here, manifested God’s presence and promises in a whole new way…
Is anything too wonderful for God? Too hard? Too impossible? The question begs us to yield what we know and don’t know to the One who wants to bless us beyond what we could imagine.
Point to the absurdity in your own life, the laughter, the doubt and disbelief. That’s where God most certainly is already at work… keeping promises.
[1] Lovelace, Vanessa, Working Preacher commentary, Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7, June 2026
[2] Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Interpretation commentary series.
[3] Lovelace
[4] Weber, Derek, UMC Discipleship Ministries Worship resources for the third Sunday after Pentecost 2026
[5] Rothaus, Kendall Rae, Sojourners magazine, Living the Word commentary June
[6] Brueggemann
[7] Weber
[8] Rothaus
[9] Brueggemann
[10] ibid.